Book studies US 'preoccupation' with China

Gordon H. Chang, a Chinese-American historian, believes that the story of Sino-American relations is better told through a cultural lens.

Chang's new book, Fateful Ties: A History of America's Preoccupation With China, reveals the emotional dimension rather than the diplomatic or political aspects of the 400-year-old relationship between China and the United States. He tells his story through portraits of entrepreneurs, missionaries, academics, artists, diplomats and activists.

"As such, I am interested in thinking attitudes and culture," Chang, professor of American history and Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities at Stanford University, told China Daily. "These are critical features in understanding the development of the relationship."

Fateful Ties draws on literature, art, biography, popular culture and politics to trace the US' long and varied preoccupation with China. It argues that China has held a special place in the American imagination from colonial times, when Jamestown, Virginia, settlers pursued a passage to the Pacific and Asia.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Americans plied a profitable trade in Chinese wares, sought Chinese laborers to help build the West, and prized China's art and decor. China was revered for its ancient culture but also attracted Christian missionaries intent on saving souls in a heathen land, according to the book.

A staunch ally during World War II, China was considered an adversary in the Cold War that followed; in the post-Mao Zedong era, Americans again embraced China as a land of inexhaustible opportunity, playing a central role in its economic rise, the book said.

Chang, also director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford, observed that "although few Americans were ever well informed about China, that did not stop them from having strong opinions and feelings about the country and its people".

"In the US, there is a short-sightedness and an emotional quality that is not helpful," he said. "Americans need to understand the long history of the relationship. The relationship, as history shows, is not new, nor will it end.

"Americans and Chinese are engaged with each other for the long term," he said. "My book will hopefully lead Americans to understand this engagement. Americans should be more patient rather than scared, which many are now."

The book also profiles such historical figures as John Fairbank, Pearl Buck and Edgar Snow and analyzed their influence. Other figures include humorist Will Rogers and actress Shirley MacLaine, who in 1973 was one of the first Americans invited to China after President Richard Nixon's historic 1972 visit.

Chang said he hoped Fateful Ties can offer a historical perspective to understand the present or, even better, to serve as an "antidote" to the anti-China rhetoric.

"The anti-China rhetoric is emotional and destructive," he said. "It serves no good purpose and is based on fear rather than fact. My book shows that China has long been important to Americans and will continue to be so. It is important that Americans appreciate this relationship."

At the same time, the Chinese also need to better understand the US, with its flaws as well as strengths, he argued. "America is neither friend nor enemy, but it is an important nation that will exert enormous influence in the world.

"It is important for Chinese as well as Americans to determine how to get along with one another. This is in both countries' interests," Chang said.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com